Some customers walk in expecting the world to bend around them, and will do whatever it takes to get their way.

So, what would you do if a shopper demanded special treatment, pretended to be hurt, and then wandered off to leave his kid unsupervised with live animals?

Would you stay quiet to protect your job? Or would you risk everything and speak up?

In the following story, one lawn and garden employee had to deal with a rude customer just like this.

Here’s what she did.

Entitled parenting with a bad case of fake injury

Ugh, this guy had to be the last customer to deal with last Sunday.

I knew he was going to be trouble when I overheard him asking a cashier, “Do you have any cardboard I can put down in my truck?”

(We sell potting soil, fence posts, etc, so this is not an unusual request)

She’s new, and when she looked past him towards me, I answered, “Sure thing; there’s a recycling dumpster by the loading bay, I just took it out this afternoon. You’re welcome to whatever pieces you’d like from there.”

The customer left his son to play with the baby chicks.

Apparently not the answer he was looking for, he turned back to her and stated, louder, “I’m not buying that fence if I don’t get any cardboard.”

They started looking at fence prices, and I ignored him. I also overheard him demanding that we load the fence roll (which was standard practice, but dude, all you had to do was ask) because he had a sprained ankle.

After he said this, I watched how he put weight on his foot and how he walked. It was quickly apparent that he was full of it.

A few minutes later, it became apparent that he was gone, but his child was still in the store.

Playing with our baby chicks.

Now, that’s a whole ‘nother tangent, but basically the word from on high is ‘let the kids play with the baby birds, it keeps the customers coming back.’

Terrified for the chicks, she made the kids stop touching them.

No, what it amounts to is animal cruelty, and I step in once in a while at the risk of my job because I won’t stand for it.

In this particular case, 6-year-old Damion had a bird in each hand and was literally making airplane noises and maneuvering them through the air.

I asked him nicely to put them back and hoped dear dad would be back soon.

Fast forward another few minutes, and now another little boy has joined Damien, and they’re both getting louder and more aggressively playful with the chicks.

Again, back to playing airplane.

No more; I tell them both they need to stop handling the birds, they’re not toys, and if they want to pet the animals, they need to have their parents around.

It takes a few repetitions to get through that I’m basically saying NO. NO MORE.

Boy #2’s mom shows up in a minute (she never apologizes, even though she heard the whole thing while she was in the next aisle), but Boy #1’s dad is nowhere to be found.

So I go looking.

It was clear that the customer wasn’t injured at all.

Dad’s not only NOT in the store, he’s out in the warehouse.

He just left his kid!

By the time he comes back, it’s been about 20 minutes. I should’ve charged him for babysitting, but I did call him on it when he came back in the door, saying, “Oh, I was worried you might not come back for him!”

He glared and said, “I was discussing fencing,” like that’s some excuse to dump your spawn at my feet.

Oh, the sprain?

When we were loading the fence (oh, hey, look, it’s 10 minutes past closing), he’s out in the parking lot PLAYING FRISBEE WITH HIS KID. My, that looks awfully painful.

He caught me giving him the look, too, and when he walked back to the car, he started limping. If I never have to deal with Daddy ********* again, I’ll live a happier life.

Yikes! People like this guy are so tough to handle.

Let’s see what the people over at Reddit have to say about people like him.

So funny!

Here’s someone who thinks she should turn the store into an animal-rights group.

This reader thinks she should’ve called her manager.

For this person, it’s all about threatening to call child services.

That man is a mess! He needs to get a grip on how to treat people and watch his kid.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.